Ask HN: How do I learn practical electronic repair?

YouTube videos are great -if- the problem you're having is exactly the same as the problem the YouTuber is solving. For example, I was able to replace the HDMI capacitors on my A/V receiver because I lucked upon a YT video where the problem I was having was identical to the problem the YouTuber was solving. So it was basically, buy these capacitors, replace them, and off you go. Repair usually just requires basic soldering skills and the ability to put things back together you took apart.

When the problem is not exactly the same, I'm just lost. There is not a lot of diagnosis videos on YouTube. All the videos are: "1. I observed this problem. 2. [???] 3. I'll walk you through soldering on the new components." skipping the most important step 2.

Same for car repair videos: "I see Problem X happening. Problem X usually means component Y has failed. Here's how to replace component Y. The end." If that doesn't work, you wasted money on the part and your time ripping apart your car and putting it back together.

Louis Rossmann’s electronics guide was the first time these concepts truly clicked for me: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkVbIsAWN2ltOWmriIdOc5Cti...

Apart from that, just fix broken stuff. Practice like any other skill, like others have said.

Like decide what skills to learn based on what’s broken.

Need to solder something together? Buy the soldering iron. Need to figure out which capacitor you need to replace with? Learn how to identify capacitors and navigate digikey.com

Roughly in order

Beginner

* Get a Miniware TS101 USB C soldering iron, some solder, solder wick, flux

* Get a mediocre multimeter

* Do a little soldering assembly kit to learn how to solder, there are some good NASA manuals and videos to learn techniques and you won't need to do as good a job as they do

* Learn how to identify and replace broken capacitors

* Learn how to replace power and USB connectors

* ^ (a huge proportion of things that are fixable at all are going to be those two)

Intermediate

* Learn about static (ESD) safety, get the equipment and supplies to prevent frying things yourself

* Get an arduino or other low cost prototyping board and learn to program it and do little projects

* Find some broken consumer electronics with guides on https://www.ifixit.com/Guide and try to fix them, these things are often less about "electronics" and more about glue

* Read the parts of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance about maintaining and fixing things

* Read https://www.eevblog.com and watch https://www.youtube.com/eevblog for information and inspiration

Advanced

* Get an oscilloscope and bench power supply, learn how to probe and analyze signals on boards

* Figure out yourself what next steps to pursue, you should be able to at this point, or at least to ask more specific questions

I learned basic electronics repair from modding and building arcade controllers, aka Fightsticks. That eventually evolved into Game Boy repair, and iPod retrofitting, and electronics restoration. It's kind of like cooking; find something you want to make, then follow the directions, and then make something else, and eventually, you'll come across a problem that you have the foundation to solve.

The most basic core of practical electronics repair is that there are things that should be conductive and things that shouldn't be conductive and you need to figure out how to do either.

> A good oscilloscope is stupid expensive

They're not that bad. You can get a good entry-level oscilloscope from a company like Rigol or Siglent for ~$300.